from theology of the body to theology of practices to the nuptial meaning of the body as a divine expression

Theology of the body starts with a story of how Adam and Eve discovered themselves simply by looking at each other. Upon seeing their respective mate, each of them intuited that both were meant for complete mutual self-giving. This intuition may be very good, but the account at how we get at it needs to be filled out with an account of how what comes intuitively in the Genesis story comes about in us only gradually through practices originating from a social context. The use of the Genesis story to theologize about sexuality allows us to talk very directly about how a husband and wife relate to each other. The man and woman in the story not only recognize not only their complementary sexual differences, but also their need and capacity to dedicate themselves to each other--or to put it in language more like John Paul II's: they recognize and desire to realize their capacity for a communion of persons. But that communion requires communication, and communication requires a community. An addition to the Genesis story is therefore needed: this addendum would note not just the sexual complementarity, but the complementarity that makes communication possible. Apart from miracles, the latter complementarity becomes developed only in the context of society. Theology of the body asks us to look at the human body, and see someone meant for communion with a spouse. We might also, upon looking at a human body, see a political animal (in the Greek sense of polis). Theology of the body talks about the nuptial meaning of the body. Well, the body has a political and not just a nuptial meaning. And these two meanings are interwoven. Marriage is a commitment, among other things, not to mess around with other bodies. That means there's a community not far at all in the background of the personal commitment called a wedding vow. It's a promise made in front of others--others, who will both hold you accountable to and help you in other ways to keep that commitment. Sex within marriage is an expressive act, and that expression is linked to vows expressed not just to one's spouse but to the community. The meaning of that act derives in part from how the vows relate one to others within one's polis.

So what is needed to talk about sex to a society that is hooked on contraceptive technology is not just a story like the one found in Genesis, but also a discussion of how what was just intuitive to Adam and Eve becomes clear to us (or fails to become such) in virtue of our practices. But this accounting for so-called intuitions in terms of practices would not be to relativize intuitions: rather, it would be a step that would precede an insightful argument as to which set of practices fulfill our deepest desires.

Yet another thought. Natural law theory is not just about God supplying existence and inclination to creatures: it's about God as the Head of a kind of community of rational beings. Our expressions of general moral insights are an attempt to say how we are to act in this, the broadest of all communities. Our situated communities, on the other hand, are genuinely fulfilling inasmuch as they point us both towards this greater community and to its unique Head. Any insight into natural law as such can be had only after our having reflected on how actions function (as expressions) within our situated community. Natural law insights are ultimately theo-political, and as such can be had only by learning from and going beyond the limits of the political dimension of our earthly existence. To see moral norms as natural laws is to see them as promulgated by divine Reason.

response to friend who suggested that the self is a democracy of neural parts

This is a nice way to try to avoid being cornered re the irreality of the self if you're a reductionist, for you can assert that a pattern obtains at the microscopic level that is not all that unlike the pattern found at the societal level. No need for the one self that does it all: instead, you have many sub-selfs that compete for dominance or take turns guiding the whole. The problem with this is, however, that the voters/officials are all zombies. None of them thinks about the whole as such. And perhaps none of them thinks even about themselves (unless one is a panzoist). None of them makes a comparison of alternatives. The more this proposed democracy seems like a zombocracy, the more consciousness will be seem to be epiphenomenal. Furthermore, if the oneness of the self is less real than the multiplicity of explanatory neural parts, then why can't each of these neural parts be conceived of as democracy as well? And why not parts of these parts, et...

what is an organism?

How about defining it as an instance of functional complexity? And treating the list of properties as following necessarily from this definition? Okay, this is very diamond-in-the-rough (or perhaps zirconium...) but here goes my thoughts on the matter: (Complexity) Many diverse parts (functional) acting for the sake of the whole I think I need to add something like "not as the instrument of another" or something like that. Given that they act together as one whole and given entropy, etc., the organism will need to posses more order than its surroundings (homeostasis). It will therefore need to take in energy (nutrition), which it will use to sustain its readiness to interact with its environment so as to preserve its own being (homeostasis again?), but which will eventually break down (death), so that in order for that life form to continue it will need to duplicate itself (reproduction), which, upon occurring, will involve both development (growth) to maturity and...

P F Strawson's Freedom and Resentment: the argument laid out

Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...

The Human Question

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